Thanks again for continuing support.I appreciate that very much.Sorry about confusion, I thought router could only add one reservation.Added 192.168.0.116 successfully, but still no name for lmde10.Firewall was disabled all the time, you told me to do that earlier in the thread.Installed nmap and all necessary ports are open.Here is output:

Regarding the computer with main edition (Julia-Pavilion), after disabling firewall it did show smbtree, correct workgroup, and (finally!) LMDE10 (in caps) lmde10 server.With following error:cli_start_connection: failed to connect to LMDE10<20> (0.0.0.0). Error NT_STATUS_UNSUCCESSFUL.Eagerly awaiting further instructions.

I did not need to edit the hosts file.Finally got to lmde10 by name, hooray!But...router still does not give this computer a name and did not take reservation I made for its IP, it assigned it another IP, I made a reservation again with the new IP, let's see what gives.Anyway, I don't care much about that because I can browse to it by name, the rest is router stuff.Yes, the always broadcast button is checked, always was, I think it is default.Also, I can see Windows shares and those machines can see Linux shares.Except for Vista computers, which pester me with password, but that is Windoze stuff.I still have some questions:do I have to have firewall disabled for samba to work?or should I set some rules there?From the IRC channel I got this suggestion, enable location bar in Nautilus with:gconftool-2 --type=Boolean --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_location_entry trueThat way I do not need to use terminal, just type smb://etc. in location bar.I am so happy with samba now, I will have to go more in depth into networking.Thank you so much!

I have a Billion router and Debain machines never have names in the DHCP table. I run a home network with an Ubuntu multimedia PC, two Android phones, one XP machine in wife's office, daughter's Ubuntu machine and an Xubuntu notebook. I also have a NAS attached that uses Samba for sharing. The all appear named in the router.

I have a Debian Testing computer I use for torturing with things I do not want to try on my main computer, and my main computer runs LMDE. Neither of these machines show names in the DHCP table, yet their network addresses are there with blank names. All my simple Samba shares work happily between the different OSs and the two Debian machines do show names when you access them from the other computers.

I have never tried to solve this as it is a non-issue. I guess the thing to note is that it is not your router at fault.

I still have some questions:do I have to have firewall disabled for samba to work?or should I set some rules there?

I don't use a firewall on most of my machines because I'm behind a router and all of my assets except one are desktops. On the laptop I have enabled one and this is what I did to make it work. I don't know what firewall you are using but for the default ufw firewall this is the procedure I used. Please note I did this quite a while ago and this is from my notes, so ....

[1] Fix something in the default ufw configuration on all your Mint machines:

From the IRC channel I got this suggestion, enable location bar in Nautilus with:gconftool-2 --type=Boolean --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_location_entry trueThat way I do not need to use terminal, just type smb://etc. in location bar.

On another subject: router definitely will not take reservation for Debian machine, with IP only.So far, this has been a non-issue (as said above), but it definitely is worth understanding why routers and Debian don't play together nicely.

On another subject: router definitely will not take reservation for Debian machine, with IP only.So far, this has been a non-issue (as said above), but it definitely is worth understanding why routers and Debian don't play together nicely.

I seriously doubt it has anything to do with Debian. Your Debian machine should be configured to get it's ip address from the router using DHCP. If you changed it to a static ip address then set it back to get it's ip address using DHCP. And make sure that the MAC address that the router is using to set the reserved ip address" matches the MAC address on the Debian machine. You can find that out by running

Regarding the router issue, I also have a netbook with LMDE 32-bit, it is called littledeb.Both lmde10 and littledeb don't show names in the router, and they are the only ones with blank names.Yes, their addresses are within the allowed pool and MAC addresses match.

You are now able to create shares in your home directory.You are now able to access LMDE from both Linux and Windows by name.You are able to access everyone else's shares on the LAN.

The three remaining issues are:

(1) The router doesn't log your LMDE machine name.I really wouldn't obsess about it. Linux will broadcast it's netbios name to everyone else on the network. As long as your router isn't actually blocking that broadcast ( and it apparently is not ) then it doesn't matter.

(2) You can't set your router to supply a static ip address to LMDE or LMDE will not accept it.The only thing I can think of is that you are setting a static ip address on LMDE itself so the router's DHCP is being ignored. You need to make sure LMDE's settings are for "Automatic (DHCP)"

altair4 wrote:Just to recap in case I'm missing something:You are now able to create shares in your home directory.You are now able to access LMDE from both Linux and Windows by name.You are able to access everyone else's shares on the LAN.

All this is correct if firewalls are disabled.

altair4 wrote:The three remaining issues are:(1) The router doesn't log your LMDE machine name.I really wouldn't obsess about it. Linux will broadcast it's netbios name to everyone else on the network. As long as your router isn't actually blocking that broadcast ( and it apparently is not ) then it doesn't matter.

I'm not obsessing, just curious.

altair4 wrote:(2) You can't set your router to supply a static ip address to LMDE or LMDE will not accept it.The only thing I can think of is that you are setting a static ip address on LMDE itself so the router's DHCP is being ignored. You need to make sure LMDE's settings are for "Automatic (DHCP)"

I think that it is rather the router that will not accept it, because it asks for a computer name and it only finds an IP.I save the reservation with the IP, it shows saved, but after a while it mysteriously disappears.I don't know how to 'make sure LMDE's settings are for "Automatic (DHCP)"'.Please explain where to check and I will post.

Only thing there is openssh-server.I have enabled ipp which is not there either, but no luck for cifs or samba.I just checked in littledeb and CIFS is there, along with lots of other apps.Maybe lmde10 got misconfigured somehow?

I think that it is rather the router that will not accept it, because it asks for a computer name and it only finds an IP.I save the reservation with the IP, it shows saved, but after a while it mysteriously disappears.

Go into your router and go to the "Add DHCP Reservation" section and make it look like this and click "Save":

Screenshot.png (20.84 KiB) Viewed 3860 times

Now right click the "Network Connection" icon on the bottom taks bar of your desktop > Edit Connections > Auto etho > Edit > IPV4 Settings > Method: Automatic DHCP. If you connect wirelessly then make the appropriate changes to the path.

Then reboot the PC. If you don't get the ip address you specified in DHCP Reservation I can't help you.

I just checked in littledeb and CIFS is there, along with lots of other apps.Maybe lmde10 got misconfigured somehow?

I would appear so. If LMDE10 is a PC and not a laptop then don't worry about a firewall - the router is a firewall. If LMDE is a Laptop then enable the firewall when you're out and about but disable it when you're in your LAN.

Please add a [SOLVED] at the end of your original subject header if your question has been answered and solved.

@altair4,Thank you so much for troubleshooting over the weekend.I checked the DHCP setting and it was set to automatic, the default.In router I typed lmde10 in computer name, set the correct IP address after checking in ifconfig and hit the Copy MAC Address button, the correct MAC was shown.Also the name was not blank after having typed it in.Saved and rebooted, reservation was gone. Will continue to troubleshoot the list of applications in the firewall, cannot figure out why it is missing in lmde10 and it shows in littledeb.lmde10 is an ancient desktop that only works properly on Linux, it is OK to leave firewall disabled until a better solution is found.I am sure that I will be able to allow samba through firewall in littledeb, that is the only one that I take for a spin.One last question: what is the purpose of the addition to the last line:IPT_MODULES="nf_conntrack_ftp nf_nat_ftp nf_conntrack_irc nf_nat_irc nf_conntrack_netbios_ns"

One last question: what is the purpose of the addition to the last line:IPT_MODULES="nf_conntrack_ftp nf_nat_ftp nf_conntrack_irc nf_nat_irc nf_conntrack_netbios_ns"

"netbios_ns" is the netbios name server protocol. It's function is to broadcast your machine's name to others on the network. It's disabled by default in ufw so that parameter is added to the base configuration to enable it. Opening up the port for netbios_ns isn't enough if ufw is set to block the protocol itself.

Please add a [SOLVED] at the end of your original subject header if your question has been answered and solved.